People of the green nineties can't find their way home

Beneath the pyramid-shaped main stage the crowds stamped and swayed in the full heat of the day to the rhythm of African drumbeats.

Stewards passed forward cups of water to the parched. Occasionally the crowd passed back over their heads the limp, sprawling bodies of those who had fainted.

A police helicopter circled far above the Glastonbury Festival. At moments the sweet scent of cannabis wafted through the air.

But there were other intoxicating substances - not least the spirit of ecological triumphalism. 'This is the end of the grey eighties,' Derek Wall, one of the Green Party's three national speakers, enthused into the microphone.

'If you thought the sixties were good, you will find them a pale imitation of what the nineties will be. We have trashed the Democrats, we have given Maggie and Neil a shock. This is where the green nineties start.'

Sunday was the festival's African music day. Free Mandela and Freedom, the crowd chanted in unison with the plainsong group, Amubutie.

Police officers - the first year they had been invited on to the 500-acre site - patrolled the fields. Occasionally they danced, self-consciously, for a short time.

On the greenfield site, in the calmer higher fields, a band of American-Indians from Quebec was practising a ritual dance on neatly patterned piles of beans, red lentils and corn.

In the Speakers' Forum a woman, in a headscarf and skirt, was addressing the subject of Sex and Relationships in the Age of Aquarius. 'Men of my age, in their forties, often open the door for me,' she told listeners. 'It's a gesture left over from the age of patriarchy.'

Back on the valley floor throngs of pedestrians kicked up the dust from dry tracks. A troop of Hare Krishna devotees passed by chanting with fixed smiles on their faces. There were cries of 'Acid', 'Afghan Hash' and 'Speed' as drugs dealers opened besides the busiest paths.

Altogether police arrested about 300 people for drugs offences during the three-day festival. The police helicopter picked one man from the site suffering from a heart attack and flew him to hospital at Taunton.

Just beyond the perimeter fence groups of full-time travellers had settled in a field intended for car parking. In the narrow country lanes, teams of police with hired tow trucks were removing vehicles from verges and embankments. By Sunday morning their tally had reached 512 cars and vans.

A local farmer sat at the entrance to his field selling one gallon flagons of home-brewed scrump. 'It's six per cent proof,' the farmer claimed. He proffered a trial glass. It tasted deceptively smooth. Another customer grinned. 'There's brain damage for you,' she said.

'Sometimes at night people are completely lost and can't find the way back to their tents so we put them up,' said Penny Mellor of Festival Welfare Services, operating out of a farmyard barn.

'There are always few people with drug overdoses or relationship breakdowns. But we are also giving away lots of condoms. We have all sorts of types for people to choose from.'